Highlights

Gardland“MAGICVILLE”

It’s like sitting on your front steps smoking a cigarette and watching the light from the corner bedroom in the third floor apartment across the street go on and off again. What are they doing up there in the dark? Probably the same thing you are, but that sudden connection of soft light makes you wonder. It’s so sudden, covering the apartment in a faint golden hue — what parts of it you can see from your steps, anyway. It’s the stretches of brick between the window panes that you are listening for intently. And when they’re left open, the sound drips from the sill like melting icicles. I still can’t figure out where the subtle drum taps are coming from.

“MAGICVILLE”

It’s like sitting on your front steps smoking a cigarette and watching the light from the corner bedroom in the third floor apartment across the street go on and off again. What are they doing up there in the dark? Probably the same thing you are, but that sudden connection of soft light makes you wonder. It’s so sudden, covering the apartment in a faint golden hue — what parts of it you can see from your steps, anyway. It’s the stretches of brick between the window panes that you are listening for intently. And when they’re left open, the sound drips from the sill like melting icicles. I still can’t figure out where the subtle drum taps are coming from.

“O Sweet Joe Pye”

Casimer is singing to the weeds, serenading a plea to take over his shoddy house. Hide it. Meanwhile, Casimir (separate musician, spelled with two i’s, but between both: four keen ears) is providing some groovy percussion, plucky bass in fuzzy bursts, provocative ambient bleeps, and busy-bee melodies flitting from his keyboard. The lyrics, sung in that lilting, near-falsetto wisp, are disarmingly somber, should you listen through the sunshine of those rich guitars and nifty double-tracked harmonies whimsically la-dah-dah-ing across the song’s setting (inspired, as it was, by the abandoned houses of Detroit). But the catharsis of Casimer&Casimir comes from those gritty guitars roaring in like exploding jet engines toward the bridge. Don’t let the baroque brass distract you; “O Sweet Joe Pye” is a happy song for killing demons.

Brille Records is releasing the single “O Sweet Joe Pye” by Casimer&Casimir on October 28 in vinyl and digital formats; have a listen to it below:

PALCNA

Yesterday was a great day for mixtapes. First, 18+ released their incredible third release, MIXTAP3, and then Susan Balmar, expert beat-/noise-/drone-maker, released his umpteenth mixtape/mini-album/.zip/whatever-the-fuck. While it’s never been 100% clear to me exactly the rationale behind Perry Trollope’s many monikers, his Susan Balmar pseudonym has been sticking as of late, with his CCG release having come out under the name late last year and now PALCNA, which is undoubtedly his strongest statement and most engaging release to date.

One could trace the songs back to other monikers — “cmcl / bail” sounds like Warm Thighs, “psl” like 0000-A70U-0075, etc. — but the continuities between the projects exist in such a way that formal distinctions, including genre ones, ultimately feel superficial and besides the point. The metallic soundscrapes; the stuttering, muffled beats; the idiosyncratic appropriations; the warm yet distanced harmonies; the cartoonish beat drops — they’re all here, and they all coexist in a wonderful, hazy stew of warped melodies, wavering beats, and a luminescent core that’s continually shrouded in hiss/noise/effects. In fact, not a moment goes by when clarity and production are not being paradoxically undermined by Susan Balmar’s modus operandi, which is to heavily process, then to awkwardly regurgitate, where beats are left to fend for themselves and textural remnants from the procedure come out completely and utterly scathed. Add the relatively seamless flow and at times collage-style execution, and PALCNA makes for a particularly compelling experience, one that feels less transitory, less sketch-like than his previous releases. Check it out here:

MIXTAP3

Amount to the hyphy of a language that doesn’t exist. Cane on the glass splinters into bare feet streaming a rush of blood toward destiny. Slip into the soul of dimensional aura and never ask for a second try. To lose is of a variety of openings seeping from color to brownish tinted yellow-mint. Violence acts out via staircase, bouncing a head on each step while spiraling to the floor. The nature of sound is nothing unless it uses a sidestep to that grind-ass beat: dick to crack to pushpin. He hisses, “Tite, yo. HhhaHhhaHhha, t’ss.” Stir the blisslessness. Continue feeding on. All. The. Right. Parts.

Melting stresses the divine presence of being. Art pretenses the creator of nothing. Nihilism whistles a similar song across the ninth floor hanging by its neck. Not pretending to be is the only way out. Sniffing into the oblivion of yayo. Dreams are a choice nobody becomes. Welcome to the dead zone of endless dismay. Color fleets as there is no vision to behold its birth. Tasting the decay of ancient skin curses the body of all nourishment. A punctured infant stomach. Falling from the bathroom window. The intestine hooked upon the exit. Length vs. distance: bur’ddur’werr’ddurSNAP *pop*.

The mystique of 18+ is impalpable. New MIXTAP3 (DOWNLOAD THIS, DUMMY!!!!!!) of theirs just dropped and will inevitably list under my top five releases for 2013.